Dog Meets World: A Worthwhile Project

Giving a personal photograph to a stranger is one of the best, easiest and kindest things people can do for one another. It is an incredible vehicle for person-to-person diplomacy.

Dog Meets World Founder, Carolyn Lane

In late 2008, Dog Meets World was founded to fulfill a dream to photograph the children of the world. To seek children in their own settings, print their image to keep for a lifetime. The dream of Dog Meets World is to empower travelers to make real connections to people in other cultures, in essence to become photo-diplomats. A picture makes anybody a "somebody".

DMW is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. So get involved and join the movement!

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Chico Sanchez: The Way North

Photo © Chico Sanchez -All Rights Reserved
One of the most recent slideshows by Chico Sanchez is The Way North, which documents the plight of the hundreds of people from South and Central America as well as Mexico's poorest regions who pass through La Lecheria, a small factory town just outside Mexico City, on their way to the borders of the United States.

Chico Sanchez is a freelance photographer based in Mexico City. Chico worked in Venezuela, collaborating with Reuters, European Pressphoto Agency, Agencia EFE, and freelances for various newspapers and magazines.

Many of Chico Sanchez's documentary/travel photography slideshows have been featured on The Travel Photographer blog and can be found here.

A number of photographers, some of whom attended the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in 2008, have documented La Lecheria. In fact, a project produced by one of the participants in my Multimedia class was on the same subject.

You can see my own slideshow Los Migrantes about the migrants who pass through La Lecheria.

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Oaxaca Mini-Photo~Expedition

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
I'm getting my gear ready for my Oaxaca Photo~Expedition, scheduled for March 17-March 21.

It's a short trip, a sort of mini photo~expedition...and will concentrate almost exclusively on street photography in this lovely small city in south Mexico. Walking the streets of the old historic center of Oaxaca is always a wonderful experience, and it cannot get better than waiting for decisive moments in the Zocalo.

We'll also do the Zapotec weavers of Teotitlan, and the weekly market in Ocatlan.

I plan to resort to my Minimalist set up, but also schlep my Canon Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS which hasn't seen much action in India a few weeks ago. Hopefully it'll come in useful should we decide to attend Guelaguetza dancing performances.

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Karim Sahai: India

Karim Sahai is a photographer and feature films digital visual effects based in Wellington, New Zealand. Born in Guadeloupe, he worked on blockbusters such as Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, among others.

I was hoping that his portfolio would include a wide variety of photographs from his birth country, but unfortunately he has only posted 5 images of Guadeloupe, a magnificent archipelago located in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Hopefully, more will be shown.

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Frommer's Rights Grab

Bob Krist is mad...fighting mad.

It sems that Frommer's have launched a photography contest calling for photographers to submit images to win the chance of seeing their work gracing the cover of a Frommer's future guide book. The winner will receive $5,000 while 4 runners up will receive Frommer's Prize pack containing three Frommer's Day by Day travel guides and a selection of Frommer's Lug travel accessories.

I've always advocated potential contestants or individuals considering such contests to really read the fine print with care, whether the organizers are well-known in the world of photography or travel or not, in an effort to highlight that most (if not all) of photography contests are rights grabs.

The Frommer's contest rules contain this:

License: Participant retains ownership of the copyright in any submitted photographs. However, by entering photograph(s) in this Contest, participant grants Sponsor the irrevocable, perpetual right to edit, adapt, use and publish in any media now known or hereafter discovered any or all of the photographs without compensation to the participant, his or her successors or assigns, or any other entity. ENTERING A SUBMISSION IN THIS CONTEST CONSTITUTES PARTICIPANT'S IRREVOCABLE ASSIGNMENT, CONVEYANCE, AND TRANSFERENCE TO SPONSOR OF THE FOREGOING RIGHTS. Photograph(s) shall be given attribution credit based on the name supplied with submission. The winner shall work with Sponsor to change the file in any way deemed necessary for publication of the photograph(s). The participants shall supply, upon request, original, unmodified digital files.

As a photographer, I would never ever grant anyone an "irrevocable, perpetual right..." to any of my work, no matter what. Not even a "throw-away" frame.

Bob Krist calls this another rights grab in sheep’s clothing. I don't know about the sheep's clothing, but I can clearly see the wolf's fangs. I also realize that a number of non-professional photographers will be tempted by the prospect of seeing one of their images in print, and perhaps that's what Frommer's target market is. However, I urge working photographers to boycott this contest and to spread the word.

I'm also shocked to see Rick Sammon, a preeminent travel photographer and educator, listed as a judge in this contest.

Update: I learned from Bob Krist's blog that Rick Sammon has now withdrawn from the panel of judges. It was the right and appropriate action to take.

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Maynard Switzer: Dogon Mask Dances

Photo © Maynard Switzer -All Rights Reserved
Maynard Switzer has recently returned from Mali, where he attended and photographed a Dogon mask dance. These dances are performed at several times during the year, and serve to celebrate the start of the rainy seasons to bring about abundant rainfall, at the end of the harvest seasons to ensure plentiful crops, and also as funerary rituals to commemorate the dead.

Photo © Maynard Switzer -All Rights Reserved
The dances involve dozens of dancers representing figures from the animal world, male and female powers, and the after-world, while the masks represent spirits, women, midwives, witchdoctors, snakes, antelopes and other various representations.

Maynard tells me that the masks are made by boys as part of their coming of age. No outsider is allowed to see the dancers get dressed & put on their masks. The older men are dressed in dark blue, and are retired former dancers who train the new dancers.

Photo © Maynard Switzer -All Rights Reserved
The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. They are best known for their mythology, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture.

Maynard Switzer was previously featured here on this blog.

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My Work: Wadha Girl

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
I'm almost done with editing my images made during my Tribes of South Rajasthan & Kutch Photo~Expedition™, and have added some images (including the one above) to the gallery Traversing The Kachchh. So drop by the gallery to see these new additions.

This young Wadha girl was determined to be photographed with her pet goat. The Wadha are largely pastorals, and the particular tribe we visited are also involved in making and selling wood charcoal.

I've been asked about my editing workflow, and it's a rather simple one. I initially get a quick bird's view of my RAW images via Canon's DPP, which is somewhat clunky, but it's uncomplicated and I got used to it. I do have a copy of Photo Mechanic somewhere, but until I find it, DPP is it. I make my edits, choose the images I like...and convert these to TIFFs with no color correction etc. Just a simple conversion from RAW to TIFF.

I perform three edits; the first two are for horizontals only (which is what I mostly shoot), and the third is for verticals.

The processing of my TIFFs is mostly done using Lightroom 2.0, and on occasion with Photoshop.

Simple and headache-free (for me).

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